The Manual of Darkness Read Free

room, at the ceiling, in the corners, looking for cameras, cables, mirrors, any gadget which, in conjunction with some illusion involving Víctor’s blindfold, might explain the trick. Everyone here knows what can be done with a single mirror. A number of people are still holding the cards they kept as the deck was being passed back. Some check their cards for the most obvious explanation, that they are all identical. Others slip cards into their pockets, happy to have a memento of this unforgettable moment; more than one does so convinced that, once he gets home, he will be able to work out how the trick was done. As Galván takes the box, there is a tense silence which lasts three full seconds before he opens it and shows the three of diamonds to the audience, not bothering to look at it before he does so, as though even to think about checking that the trick has worked would be an insult to his student. Víctor still stands, his back to the audience.
    ‘What is the card?’
    Nobody answers. Maybe because they know that the question is simply a formality, or maybe because, in the thunderous rumble of applause, they have not heard the question. A fleeting smile plays on Víctor’s lips and, in a whisper his audience cannot hear, he says: ‘It doesn’t matter. They are all God’s children.’
    He turns. Acknowledges their applause with a slow bow. He smiles and removes the blindfold. Opens his eyes gradually as though the light were a lance. And it is; he quickly closes his left eye again and covers it with one hand. Then opens it, his hand still cupped to his face to protect his eye from the dazzling spotlight. Has he got something in it? He lightly touches his eyelid with one finger, applying no pressure, unable to resist rubbing it but terrified that he will find a piece of glass or grit, something abrasive. A moon. That is what is in his left eye. A diminutive full moon. A capsule. A small white wafer.
    The applause does not stop. Víctor blinks. First once, slowly and deliberately, then rapidly, repeatedly, almost like a nervous tic. He scans the front row from right to left and notices that the white halo moves too. It is a strange sensation. Anyone else in his position would run to the bathroom and bathe his eyes under the tap. Víctor senses that this would not do any good, perhapsbecause he cannot help connecting this strange episode with the powder flash that briefly eclipsed the green door barely half an hour ago.
    Above the racket, a voice shouts:
    ‘Víctor! Here!’
    It’s Galván. Seeing Víctor has heard him, with a flick of his wrist, he sends the three of diamonds leaping into the air, where it spirals across the room. This is something they have practised a thousand times. Galván could flick every card in the deck to him from much farther away, with his back turned; he could even walk around as he flicks one card after another, and every one of them would come to rest in the half-open hand Víctor now extends to catch the three of diamonds. Only the poise that comes from years of practice makes it possible for him to wait patiently, pretending to follow the card as it flies. Because he cannot see the card. The wait seems endless, as though some cog in the machinery of time has suddenly broken. Nothing outlandish, nothing that would make the earth shake, nothing that would deflect a planet from its orbit: it is a pitiful rattle, a turn of the screw. In a few months, when he tries to recall this moment, it will seem to him that he can only reach it by crossing a desert of empty days. He closes his hand just in time to pluck the card out of the air. He looks at it. At first, he can see no three, no diamonds, nothing but a blank card. Only if he closes his left eye can he see the blurred shapes printed on the card.
    Confused, he steps down from the stage and mingles with the crowd. There is more back-slapping, more gentle nudging. They say things, whisper congratulations into his ear. And he can also